Einstein and Eddington (2008)

So much average

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Andy Serkis was the biggest problem for me in this film. Because he spoke nothing like Einstein (whom I've often heard in clips)--and projected nothing of the personality I've read about--that portion of the film really threw me off. Other actors have decided to neither take coaching to speak like or change themselves to look like the famous characters they portrayed; but Serkis took that one step further by changing his character's basic personality too--and often portrayed Einstein as a canny clownish elf! I felt the casting was a mistake, and the acting was a throw-away. What a shame.David Tennant was fine, though. And discovering the laws of physics and development of what went on in the early years of the last century was thrilling--if over-dramatic in some places.

The best historical drama since Longitude, Einstein and Eddington not only reveals the extraordinary political and emotional drama of a break through moment in history, but shows that scientists are uniquely human. It is science and art that elevate us above the banal and the animal, and unites us in the common cause of the future. War is an aberration, like cancer. Truth is the only goal that is worth achieving. This film is a great and happy display of the supremacy of truth and the real conquest of reality, not by force of arms but by force of brains. As John Brunner wrote in his apocalyptic novel The Shockwave Rider, (according to Angus Porter) "This is the third stage of human social evolution. First we had the legs race. Then we had the arms race. Now we're going to have the brain race. ... And, if we're lucky, the final stage will be the human race." As long as there are men like Eddington and Einstein, I do not have the slightest doubt that there will be a human race, and we can all be proud to be part of it.

There are not too many films which accurately depict the personal lives of historical figures. Try as they may, secret human peculiarities which are more readily acceptable or at least tolerated in our present age, are seen as huge obstacles in years past. Case in point, this film called " Einstein and Eddington " is only now surfacing to the American public and according to this reviewer, has done a masterful job. The story itself centers on two men of Genius who lived at the beginning of the Tweneith century. The first is Arthur Eddington (David Tennant) the British Mathematician and astrophysicist and German scientist Albert Einstein (Andy Serkis, superb characterization). This film captures both the social and a bit of their personal lives before they became known to the world. Einstein is seen searching for answers to his theories concerning gravitational phenomenon and it's relationship to light. Eddington is captivated by the scientific contradictions of the Planet Mercury and Newtons calculations of its orbit. The result is the communication between The Englishman and the Swiss scientist, both of whom shrug off their nationalities in lieu of scientific truth. With Eddington dealing with his personal emotional ties to his secret admiration and love for his dear friend William Marston, (Patrick Kennedy), Einstein, deals with his wife Malava who confronts him with divorce, due to his illicit affairs. Both men are seen in their moments of contentment as well as dealing with their doubts and tragedies. All in all, the movie is a great triumph for both actors and a notable milestone for their accomplishment. Easilly recommended to anyone who would like to peek into the personal lives of two men who shook the world. ****

Despite going to town on this well-intentioned project that marries drama, scientific explication and a smattering of other issues (which orbit the event heliocentrically like the clanky model dominating Eddington's study), it really does feel terrible soppy. Everything is a series of set pieces as well - in a post walk-n-talk world one might expect a little more economy. The problem is that the biggest drama is not the War, the lover that dare not speak his name, the erosion of faith or Einstein's burgeoning interest in Schubert (all dealt with in a worn, conventional set pieces). No, the problem is all to do with the dry, literary nature of theoretical science. The script is the biggest offender with Laboratoire Garner-style 'here comes the science!' moments. It's too easy to patronise an audience with the well-worn exposition technique of one character explaining what's going on to another. The most effective sequence of this film is that in which Einstein has his epiphany in the middle of oncoming traffic but no further mention is made of the incident, either in flashback or dialogue when Eddington is re-explaining it to his confidants.Luckily the performances are reasonable - the three world-class actors (Serkis, Broadbent and Jodhi May) manage performances that transcend TV. The big draw for the target audience though is casting the BBC's mad-scientist-superstar/lodestone David Tennant as Eddington. Tennant is a sympathetic Eddington, discovering his backbone and the cracks in conventional Newtonian physics simultaneously. The secondary cast are good support, particularly Donald Sumpter as Max Planck. This is not Copenhagen, but it was never supposed to be (and it's well filmed). 4/10